Monday, December 13, 2010

If you are Catholic and have had the uncommon privilege of halfway decent catechesis at some point in your life, then you are probably aware that Christmas is not the supreme High Feast day of the Liturgical Ordo. No, that honour, the crowning jewel of the Calendar of Seasons, belongs to Easter. It is the Day of Days; the celebration of Christ triumphing over evil and death forever. Yet Christmas has it's place, especially in modern culture, where the sacred presentation of the Nativity of Christ gives way to a flurry of privately held traditions, even if that means denying any tradition at all.

Christmas was always a kind a brutal tug of war in the family I grew up with. I had the very proper Eastern-bred paternal grandparents who threw lavish semi-formal parties in their home, complete with crystal chandeliers, a "don't even think about touching that" tree towering in every room, and fine linens protecting the mahogany table in the overly formal dining room, every horizontal surface crowded to excess with enough holiday food to feed a small town, and enough blended Scotch to keep all of the brothers and my grandfather very giggly and generous until everyone was exhausted and ready for sleep. Attendance was evidently mandatory and never really questioned - a situation that never sat well with my smoldering-tempered mother, who felt forcibly alienated from her own kin, and she made a point of saying so every chance she got.

On the other side of the familial fence there was my diminutive maternal "Gram." Hailing from a family of a dozen-or-so Nebraska-farm-reared siblings, five times married, and a veteran of the war-time entertainment stage, my Gram would pull out all the stops with parties where not a drop of alcohol was allowed, but guitars, banjos, singing, and games ran clean through the night and into dawn without respite, and not one person felt any need to argue about anything at all...which, if you've ever been within twenty miles of that family line, you know what a certifiable miracle is witnessed in such a feat.

Only once did my parents take my brothers and me to the latter family gathering. I was eight years old. Earlier that day, the Catholic church across the street from my Gram's house burned to the ground and, at some point, my Gram, my Great Grandma Grace, my mother, and I stood in the shadow of the carport under a clear black sky and just wondered at the acrid scent of dampened smoke in the air, and the sad, jumbled pile of dark grey granite stones across the way that had just one sunset before been the small fortress church where my mother had grown up and eventually found her conversion.

I stood under my Grandma Grace's shoulder just then and hugged her tight, breathed in the warm scent of lavender that permeated her tiny, soft, pearl-buttoned cardigan, and she held me close in return whilst she chatted quietly with her daughter and grand daughter. It was the first and the last time that I would ever get to spend Christmas with my great grandmother at her house; the following year she was in a nursing home and not long after her arrival, she fell, broke a hip, lost her left leg to sepsis, and faded quickly and quietly away in the Spring.

That last Christmas night, my Gram gave me one of her decorations; a tiny pearly-white plastic music box, shaped like a pipe organ, made festive with tiny sprigs of green plastic holly and a golden-winged angel sitting at the bench, tiny alabaster hands poised over imaginary keys that played, when the secret key in the back of the box was turned just so, a very tiny "Silent Night." The music stopped ages ago, but to this day, it is one of my favourite possessions. It reminds me of the night when my mother was home with her elder sisters and seemed almost happy--the only Christmas that I can actually remember when she did not loose her temper at some point, drag me into an empty room and paddle me silly for some indiscretion of manners, real or imagined. It is the only Christmas that I ever saw my Gram in her authentic, radiant element, playing the boisterous hostess to everyone she loved, whether related by blood or not. It was beautiful because it was simple, it was memorable because it was a night truly governed by peace in the midst of tragedy.

I was eighteen-years-old the last time I ever attended a family Christmas party. I stopped going because that year I tried to institute a new family tradition, and failed miserably. I came that night armed with a Bible, gathered everyone together in my grandparents' living room, and read the Nativity account from the Gospel of Luke. Three days later on Sunday morning just before I left for church with friends, my mother told me over the phone how embarrassed she was by such a "brazen display of hypocrisy" and she assured me with an unmistakable sneer that I had made a fool of myself by doing something so "stupid." The next year I just stayed in bed under the covers and read a book with a trusty box of chocolates at my side. The year after that I had the flu. Another year; I lived fifteen-hundred miles away and began a chosen pattern of working holidays so that others could go home to their own families.

...A decade more, and my paternal grandfather died; our family scattered silently to the Four Winds never to gather together in the same space again, just as my mother's family had done when Grandma Grace had left us. Over time misunderstandings and bitter tales of slights and crimes against egos would fracture, splinter, and eventually kill my family on both sides. In my immediate relations, after my parents divorced, sides were chosen, stories were told and scandalously embellished in the retelling, lines were drawn in concrete and, finally, there came that one empty, aching moment whilst watching the snow twinkle as it fell softly under the street lamp outside my window when I realised that the family that I missed and loved no longer existed, nor did anyone but me care to resurrect it. Not too many years ago I decided that it was time to call a spade a spade: for all practical purposes I am an orphan in this cold, massive world that my true mentor once called "the long loneliness," and there is no "home" to be at for Christmas in this or any other year.

I spend a lot of time with homeless people during the holidays, not out of any sense of devotion, but out of necessity. The holidays have a way of breeding guilt in the hearts of country club Christians who suddenly grow consciences that inform them (however wrongly) that condescending to some poor social lepers in the soup line for a few hours will expiate a mountain of sins against Charity. The poorest of the poor may be lacking in material blessings, but they aren't lacking in brains, or insight into human nature; they see the fraud afoot, and they graciously ignore it as best they can. What's the alternative?

I talk to many of these people during this season when city works departments start wrapping lamp posts in gaudy tinsel and glaring lights; they have often told me how grating the kettle bells are when they know that some nice bank vault will receive a fat, heavy bucket of guilt change that night whilst their own empty stomachs continue to gnaw and gurgle within them because they haven't got two dollars to spend on a cup of instant soup at the A & P.

Right now, at this precise moment, the Union Gospel Mission is turning men away because they haven't any room left to keep them. It's three degrees outside. I beg local donors for old blankets to stuff in our beaten wreck of a car so that we can go search for our friends who sleep down by the lake and the rivers where the police won't go looking for them. Every now and again, we luck out and someone dumps a black lawn bag of old mittens and hats and an occasional hunter's jacket on our covered porch without a word; it's not difficult to find barren bodies to put them on.

I have watched homeless men die of hypothermia whilst police officers mistakenly argue over whether they are just drunk or stoned. I have sat in our car and cried over weary mothers huddled in their own cars with children who do not understand that the reason that they cannot go home is because Daddy lost the rent money at the track or, worse, tried to strangle Mommy to death in a rage last week whilst they slept in the next room. I have had to run for cover in the face of one of the most obscene injustices I know: an honourably discharged disabled veteran returned from battle overseas, lying on crushed cardboard under the canopy of a tree in the Chancery park because our Congressional leaders chose to cut his pay and his benefits instead of their own whilst he was half a world away sacrificing life and limb for a war that should have never been waged in the first place....I am ashamed of what they have come home to, and I am ashamed to let them see me cry for their forgotten honour.

Often I ask these people if they have family; I am no longer disappointed when they tell me, "No." I used to be deeply bothered when a homeless person told me that they do not know whether their own parents, siblings, or children are alive or dead. I no longer wonder at the absurdity of someone telling me that they don't remember the last address their mother lived at, or that the last phone number they had for a brother or sister was disconnected ages ago.

In too many ways the homeless people whom I have come to regard as my family are veritable orphans. People in better circumstances are all too quick to assume that the bum on the street drinks or drugs themselves into a stupor out of selfishness or sloth. I know better. I know from first hand experience the dull, throbbing ache of the long loneliness; I know what it is to be so far away from kin that you know that you are a cipher in the deep, deep snow to those whom you love in absentia. I know what it is to weep over the loss of someone who you have only known in the exchange of a blanket and a kind word, or an hour in a warm, idling car over a shared cup of coffee and a cold sandwich.

Tonight one of our friends was found dead in a park. Flashes of smoldering piles of deep dark grey granite filled my mind as one of my police contacts told me that they "don't think he suffered much." I know that this statement is absolutely untrue, and I hate it that we live in a society that believes such lies. My friend at the police department asked me if our friend has any family that can be contacted. There is no one.

No one.

Another beautiful-but-nameless orphan in the world who was known to us and who will be known no more because he froze to death alone and unwanted in a public park. He's the tenth friend we have lost thus far this Winter, and Christmas hasn't even been and gone, yet.

I've decided that I absolutely hate Christmas, and this year I have ten very good reasons why:

Friday, October 22, 2010

Usually, the 15th of October is when we send out our annual appeal letter. Suffice it to say that none of us has had the time or energy to focus on such a task.

But our needs are huge.

We need another vehicle, and we are looking for gas money to get the furnace going, and also to get one of our kids back and forth from counseling.

We have also been feeding more drop-ins than usual, so any groceries are appreciated, as is coffee, toothbrushes, and bathroom tissue.

And if anyone knows how to fix bicycles, please let us know.

The garden is finally put to bed, and Mary Alice dropped off the last fifty pounds of squash down at the food pantry. It's going to be a hard, early winter, and most of our pumpkins are still green--not good. But we're dehydrating apples and carrots and all of the herbs have been brought in and put up.

Monday, August 9, 2010

CHIMAYO — Friday marks the 65th anniversary of the U.S. droppingan atomic on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, an attackmeant to end World War II. Activists have mobilized on eightacres in Chimayó with a plan to ensure that, on that day, LosAlamos National Laboratory hears their calls for a nuke-freeworld.

The 10-day event here — called Disarmament Summer Encampment — isbeing organized by Think Outside the , a national nuclearabolition group. Activists are camping on the grounds, owned byTeresa Juarez, whose grandson Miguel Moreno lives there and is oneof Disarmament Summer's lead organizers. Seven of the family'sdogs run around freely during the daytime, and tents areeverywhere as nuclear opponents continued to fill up the camp onSunday.

The plan is to gather Friday at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos for arally that will incorporate performance art to tell stories ofnuclear power's damaging effects on communities around thecountry. Then the group will march through the town and onto labproperty.

What the protest will look like has yet to be determined (there istalk of puppets), but members of Think Outside the want thewhole procession carefully planned, so that when they take to theatomic 's birthplace on Friday, they're armed with a group ofprotestors educated on what exactly they're standing up for.

To that end, about 30 people gathered in a wide circle under atarp Sunday afternoon for a workshop called "Nukes 101." Speakersfrom varying parts of the country took turns tackling a differentaspect of what they see as nuclear power's destructive legacy.

Twa-le Abrahamson told the group about the Spokane Reservation inWashington, where she's from. Abrahamson said uranium mining wenton there for decades, beginning in the 1950s, and the healtheffects have been devastating for tribal members who spent yearsworking the mines with no clue of the toll to their bodies.

"A lot of people are sick," she said. "There are a lot of widows."

Rozlyn Humphrey, from Aiken, S.C., said plutonium from theSavannah River Site, built near Aiken in the 1950s to helpconstruct nuclear weapons, has done irreparable harm to the landand river there.

"You dare not eat fish out of the Savannah River," she said. Andin a part of the country where hunting is dogma, she said, no onehunts because radiation in the ground has caused the vegetation tobe contaminated, so animals that eat it aren't safe.

Other activists told similar tales, but the essential point ofDisarmament Summer Encampment may have been most plainly expressedby Jennifer Nordstrom, from Racine, Wis.: "Nuclear weapons arestill being used — in testing and in the global politics of threatand fear. ... New Mexico is the sacrificial state for the nuclearweapons industrial complex."

Organizers with Think Outside the don't want the lab closeddown — Miguel Moreno said too many people in rural San MiguelCounty depend on Los Alamos for work: "We don't want to takeanything away; we want that money, we just want it for somethinggood."

Think Outside the 's Jono Kinkade said his organization iskeeping a close eye on planning for a new plutonium pit in LosAlamos. The lab earlier this year announced plans for itsChemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement building, whichwould take a decade to build, with 22,500 square feet of labspace, much for analyzing plutonium and other radioactivematerials. Funding for the building still hasn't been approved byCongress, but the total price could be $4 billion, based onNational Nuclear Security Administration proposals.

"Stopping the CMRR (from being built) is a central focus," Kinkadesaid. "We're trying to create political pressure, because thatmoney can be better spent on cleaner technology and renewableenergy."

LANL officials have said that the mission, for decades, has notbeen to make new nuclear weapons but to maintain the country'sexisting stockpile. As nuclear age, scientists need toupgrade their technology. That work would be carried on at theCMRR building. And former NNSA manager Don Winchell told anaudience in Española in June that the CMRR was vital for nationalsecurity because of nuclear forensics work that helps thegovernment track nuclear materials in other parts of the world.

"We're not building fancy new weapons," Winchell, who retired lastmonth, said then.

"If they want to have a beautiful, expensive new facility, why notuse it to create renewable energy?" Jennifer Nordstrom said."There could be an economic transformation if they changed theirfocus from and destruction to life-changing renewables."

Think Outside the is hoping that message comes across loudand clear Friday.

Friday, June 11, 2010

After receiving multiple requests for information during a very busy trip, the community members from the Gilbert House Catholic Worker in Glenwood City would like to offer the following for publication:

Miki Tracy and Carly Ann Koon, representatives of the Gilbert House Catholic Worker Community in Glenwood City, Wisconsin, have embarked on a four-month mission trip across the United States to document homelessness and poverty in America.

The germ for making this road trip was borne out of an unfortunate conversation this past year between Carly and a teacher at Glenwood City High School in which the teacher denied that there are well over half a million homeless on the streets at any given time in the United States. The same teacher also denied the accuracy of Federal statistics which have identified an overwhelming prevalence of pervasive mental illness within the homeless demographic, as well as a significant number of women, children and families. The posit that the homeless in our midst are out on the streets "of their own fee choice" was so disconcerting to Carly that she decided she had to find out for herself what is really happening out on the streets.

Carly and Miki are documenting what they can of the problem for themselves, visiting various organizations to see how volunteers across our great nation answer the needs of homelessness and poverty in their local communities "at a personal cost." Carly and Miki will be publishing an extensive photo-journalism project at the conclusion of their trip, as well as posting updates on our homepage, http://gilberthouse.blogspot.com, along the way. They are relying totally on free will donations to make this journey a success.

Currently, Miki is serving at the Corpus Christi House of Hospitality in Boise, Idaho. Carly has gone on to Tacoma to meet up with friends of our community, and to interview and work with members of the Tacoma Catholic Worker. Carly and Miki will meet up late next week in Seattle to continue their journey to soup kitchens, shelters, Christ houses, and other related communities in the King and Pierce County area; they will then continue down the Pacific Coast through Oregon and California before working their way back East, stopping at communities in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, and Minnesota. They will begin the eastern leg of this venture in Washington D.C. the first week of August, where they will be volunteering at other communities throughout the north-eastern U.S. before returning to Glenwood City sometime in Setember.

Mary Alice Calhoun and Amanda Hopkins have remained at Gilbert House to tend our garden so that our produce donations to the WestCap food pantry continue without decline or interruption.

Miki is a writer and Catholic apologist, and works with the American Catholic Writers Guild, as well as various national and international periodicals; she currently has several articles and essays in production, including the June issue of GILBERT Magazine. Carly is a recent graduate of Glenwood City High School and is currently discerning what (and where) she would like to study in her future college course.

For further information please visit our homepage. Miki and Carly may be reached at 715-308-8295 during the trip.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Priest, keeper of the Word, risk-embracer

By Colman McCarthyFor NCR

I wrote Daniel Berrigan’s obituary the other day. The Jesuit priest, writer, teacher, dramatist, peacemaker, war resister and truth-teller who lives in New York City isn’t dead, of course, nor is he even close to being ill as he nears his 89th birthday this spring. The obituary editor at The Washington Post, my old paper, said he wanted an expansive piece written unhurriedly beforehand rather than risk a quickie dashed off under deadline pressure. In the newspaper world, advance obituaries are usually reserved for the giants -- presidents and popes. Which explains why Berrigan gets one: He is a giant.

I had time to go back and reread much of the stunningly large amount of ambiguity-free prose that is the Berrigan opus, from the early books such as Night Flight to Hanoi, No Bars to Manhood and False Gods, Real Men, to the later ones: Minor Prophets, Major Themes and To Dwell in Peace, his autobiography. And more poems, essays, journals and plays, early and late.

The richness of it all would stand alone as enduring literature. Yet the beauty of the language -- flexuous metaphors, spare allusions -- goes beyond the pleasures of reading well-crafted prose. Underlying it is the Berrigan conscience that consistently takes brave stands and embraces risks.

The larger forms of this priest’s defiance are well-known to anyone who has stayed even mildly abreast of the American peace movement in the past half-century. Tucked into the folds are the smaller but no less telling run-ins with power, starting with the presidents of Jesuit colleges and universities that sponsor ROTC programs. After teaching for a semester in 1989 at Loyola University in New Orleans, and taking his students on a field trip to learn how to get arrested at an antiwar rally, Berrigan wrote to the president that he wouldn’t be back due to his opposition to Loyola’s ROTC program. As recounted by Robert Ludwig in Apostle of Peace, the university president disagreed, replying that “given the reality of the military, it is better to have officers who have the benefit of a Jesuit education.”

Berrigan wrote back: “I love your logic. It seems to me that, given the reality of abortion, Loyola should sponsor an institute for abortionists, and given the reality of capital punishment, you should sponsor an institute for executioners.”

Equally searing was the Berrigan indictment of Jesuits as “masters of invention. They come out of the culture, they know how to take its pulse, try its winds and trim their sails. We’re not running the Little Brothers of Jesus. We’re not running the Catholic Worker. We’re running Georgetown University, [its] School of Foreign Service. We’re a nursery for the State Department.”

He could have added the Pentagon, now that President Obama’s chief national security advisor is retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a Georgetown graduate. As is Gen. George Casey Jr., chief of staff of the U.S. Army and a Georgetown ROTC graduate in May 1970. That same month Berrigan was underground, merrily on the lam evading an FBI manhunt after he refused to be imprisoned for his conviction of burning draft files in Catonsville, Md.

Presuming he read a recent issue of NCR, what must Daniel Berrigan have thought about a Georgetown Jesuit’s column hailing the current Obama war policies as “very Catholic”? Probably with the same sadness and subdued anger brought on by reading in the same issue an article titled “Bishops back Obama Afghanistan strategy” (NCR, Jan. 8).

I first met Berrigan in 1966. He came to Washington at the invitation of Sargent Shriver, who was then heading the Office of Economic Opportunity. The summer before, Berrigan had served as a tutor in an Office of Economic Opportunity migrant worker program in Colorado. In effect, he was a federal worker. He spoke at a Shriver staff meeting, saying that the poor have it hard, and the hardest thing they have is us. He predicted, rightly, that the Vietnam War would drain money from the war on poverty, and that both wars would be lost.

I last saw Dan a few years ago when he officiated at the wedding of Arthur Laffin and Colleen McCarthy, two pacifists who help run the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington. It was a festive event, with Dan at his priestly best and the wedding guests feeling blessed to enjoy the company of a rare keeper of the Word.

The week after they both graduate from high school on May 23rd, we plan on taking Carly and Amanda (Lilly) on a mission roadtrip. The goal of this roadtrip is to introduce them to the reality of poverty and homelessness across America, and what is being done at the grassroots level to give service to, and care for, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The idea for this trip grew out of a recent conversation in the classroom in which a "current social issues" teacher argued with Carly over the state of homelessness and poverty in America. This public school teacher does not believe that there are 600,000+ homeless in the U.S. at any given time; she does not believe that many of these are women, children, and the elderly; she does not believe that many of them are mentally ill, or that they are on the streets for any other reason than that "they choose to be." For her own part, Carly did her research, brought back published statistics, and even articles that she found in our own collection of Catholic Worker newspapers and newsletters....and then she came home, incredulous and disgusted by her teacher's refusal to believe reality. Carly decided that she wants to see what's actually going on for herself, and she wants to put together a detailed photo-journal which she plans on publishing on our homepage, and hopefully in some newspapers across the country.

We would like to see Carly and Amanda put to work, and they are very excited about the possibilities ahead of them, the opportunities to meet and befriend new people, and the learning experiences that will be opened to them. We want for them to experience a wide variety of intentional communities around the country, so that they can make some informed choices, and experience what it really means to depend on the goodness of others. We also want them to see what the Peace/Plowshares Movement is all about, and summer in the western states is the perfect time for that.

Our plan is to drive from Wisconsin through Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington; then down through Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, up through Nebraska, possibly Iowa, and back across Minnesota again.

We will be bringing a couple thousand pieces of literature and prayer cards with us from the Dorothy Day Guild to distribute for anyone who wants them. And, of course, we are bringing ourselves.

We will be depending on donations and the good will of others to make this trip successful, and we will be happy to do whatever work you have at hand.

Please pass this on to anyone, any community or church/parish group that you think might be interested in teaching and having a couple extra sets of hands for a few days.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

We received a letter via email asking about what we do here at Gilbert House, what our expenses are, and that we explain what's going on here. People actually ask these questions all the time. After discussing the query, and looking over our sadly-neglected homepage, we've realised that maybe we're not very clear in our intentions, and decided that maybe this is information that should be put out there for anyone who wants to know. In the interest of full disclosure, for anyone who's interested, here's the gist of it:

Thank you very much for your inquiry. We'd be happy to share with you:

1. "Do you know Mark and Louise Zwick?" Miki has met them a few times over the years--most recently a few years ago at the GK Chesterton Society Conference when Dale invited them to speak. She also calls them every now and again for advice and mentoring. They have, a couple of times, sent cases of their book for us to distribute (which has been a GOD-send), and we receive/read/share their community paper, amongst others, but that's the extent of our contact currently.

On an aside, it might also help you to know that Miki is the vinter for the American Chesterton Society, and a few of their members are friends and supporters of our house; Dale Ahlquist is not only a friend of the Zwicks, he is a dear friend of ours, was Miki's confirmation sponsor, and remains to this day something of a spiritual father to her. It was that tie, specifically, that had us choosing to christen the house after G.K. Chesterton and, when we are able to expand, our second house will be named for G.K.'s wife, Frances. And, yes, it will be used primarily for transient community.

2. "What are your average monthly utilities?" Electric and gas budget plans run about 170.00 a month and water is approximately 85.00 every quarter. We have a friend of the house who pays for our phone/uplink.

3. "What is the monthly mortgage payment?" 536.00, plus 45.00 insurance. Miki took a part-time job as a night auditor at a hotel so that we can make double payments as often as possible. Because this house is very small (three bedrooms, one bath), we want to pay it off quickly so that we can put it in trust, and then purchase the next-door neighbor's house to expand our community.

4. "What is the monthly grocery bill?" This varies considerably, sometimes by two-to-three hundred dollars. During the summer and autumn, it's very low--around 100-150 a month for staples like flour, sugar, coffee, cereals, eggs, etc. It all usually depends on how well the garden does, how often people come to us for emergency food, and how many impromptu community potluck meals we have the opportunity to serve ever month....which we really need to start up again.

As to your questions about our house, it was actually, once upon a time, a farm house. The story goes that about a century ago, it was built by a man from a Sears & Roebuck kit as a wedding gift for his bride on a triple town lot, and that she spent her life turning the whole place into a garden and safe haven for chickens, rabbits and the like. The neighbor's house that we are praying/striving to add to our community sits on the other two lots, now. Slowly but surely, we keep tearing out bits of grass and replacing it with garden plots once again.

Shortly, there will be four who live permanently in our house. We have a couple of sofa-sleepers in the living room, the narrower of which can be dragged into the dining room if we have a family come to stay with us for short periods. What had been just "the library" is now Amanda and another girl's room, as it is the largest in the house. We are working hard to pay off the house so that we can make a contract with our neighbor, because we quite regularly have someone sacked out on at least one sofa. And, we've recently been asked by a couple who travel with the carnivals if they and some of their friends can pitch tents in our backyard and have access to our kitchen and bath this summer for the weeks before, during and after the Wisconsin Renaissance Faire--it won't be the first time we've had tents back there, and it definitely won't be the last, I'm sure.

We also have friends of the house in a couple of neighboring towns--mostly academics--who let us use their guest rooms in a pinch when we need them to make up for the space and resources that we lack. That's actually been helpful when we've had kids and young adults in violent situations (here's a clue to why this is such a deep-seated problem here: we live in a town of 1,200 people and we have *nine* bars within a five-mile area--alcoholism and multi-generational violence are no strangers here) who need to find some safe distance and quiet while we find other arrangements.

Our main charism at Gilbert House started out with just living and teaching sustainable community, but it has kind of shifted in a strange way to advocacy and shelter for young adults. We find ourselves putting alot of effort into shuttling abused or neglected teenagers to and from jobs to help them get their start, or to Red Cedar Medical Center's community behavioural health program so that they have a safe place to work through whatever might be causing their lives turmoil when it's more than can be dealt with here. We also try very hard to engage them with the local community; for instance we have quite a few elderly in our neighborhood and, as much as possible, we take a couple of kids with us here and there, go clean, weed, and tend those neighbor's yards and gardens if they cannot (and shovel and clear snow in the winter), use the refuse in our compost, and try to identify any needs that they might have that we can assist with--this has been a great tool for getting some of our kids interested in the lives and needs of others. When we identify those needs, we try to help meet them as best we can.

We are currently exploring a partnership with our local Newman Center and a couple of parishes in the neighboring diocese to help increase not only our local presence, but also to more strongly establish what we can do as a CW community to be proactive in healing and strengthening our local community. In the future, we hope to establish a sister house with a similar charism in nearby Menomonie. And we are always open to suggestions and new opportunities, just so long as they are in keeping with the Magisterial teachings of the Church (especially as they relate to social justice) and to the Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker Movement.

Thanks very much for your questions! If you'd like to know anything else, please don't hesitate to ask; we're happy to tell you!

Christianity Untried

Chesterton says:"The Christian idealhas not been triedand found wanting.It has been found difficultand left untried."Christianity has not been triedbecause people thoughtit was impractical.And men have tried everythingexcept Christianity.And everythingthat men have triedhas failed. ~Peter Maurin

Gilbert House

in Glenwood City, Wisconsin

Thank You For Being Generous!

About Gilbert House

We are an intentional Distributist community in west-central Wisconsin striving together to live the ideals of the the Bible and the Catholic Worker Movement since 2004. We are actively engaged in sustainable gardening, corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy and living the most authentic Catholic Christianity possible with an eye towards the social teachings of the Church and the betterment of our youth and families. The lives and writings of Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day, G.K. Chesterton, Hillaire Belloc, Eric Gill and many others, for better or worse, inform our ideals and ambitions....

Contact us:

433 East Oak StreetGlenwood City, WI 54013715-265-4070

gkc.catholicworker{at}gmail.com

Why Gilbert House is not tax deductible:

In the tradition of our founders, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, the Gilbert House Catholic Worker is not an incorporated agency or organization and donations made to us are not, therefore, tax deductible. We are also firmly opposed to possessing tax deductible status, even if this means that people will not help our cause. This is because as Catholic Workers, the means with which we achieve our ends come at a personal sacrifice, and the means are just as important as the ends themselves. If people, churches or organizations want to donate to the ongoing apostolate of any Catholic Worker House, they should do so because it is the right thing to do, not because the government gives them a tax write off. Our advice is simple: do what you can, with what you have, where you are. That is what we are trying to do, and we invite you to help. Omnia ad majorem Dei gloriam!

Current House Needs

Travel/pocket Bibles & journals/pens

travel toiletries and bath bags

grocery store gift cards

camp tarps and sleeping bag liners

gas cards

telephone cards

bicycles

*good* Christian novels books for guests

embroidery supplies and fabric

a roofer

sheet rock

greenhouse materials

vegetable and flower seeds

gardening supplies

copies of the Catechism

books

land for food raising

cash donations

"The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up." ~Dorothy Day

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"Where are the heroes and the saints, who keep a clear vision of man's greatest gift, his freedom, to oppose not only the dictatorship of the proletariat, but also the dictatorship of the benevolent state, which takes possession of the family, and of the indigent, and claims our young for war?" ~Dorothy Day.